Do You Hear What I Hear?
by Sean Montgomery
Summary: Part 7 of 7. A change in Christmas plans gives Clark a chance to see how much his boy has grown recently.


Disclaimers: I don't own it. I'm trying to go on with life, I swear...

Notes: Hi guys. Please don't shoot me for saying this, but I actually wrote this for the 12 Days of Clois Christmas challenge and am just now getting around to posting it. -sheepish smile- But it's here! And I hope you enjoy it in all of its simplicity!

And keep your eyes open. There's going to be another update really soon...

* * *

"What do you _mean_ our flight is cancelled? You can't just do that out of nowhere! You aren't giving people time to prepare! Is there corruption in the flight system or something? Are you doing this to see how much money you can swindle out of unsuspecting people in the holiday season?_Hey!_ I'm talkin' to you, Blondie! Don't _walk away _from me when I'm chewing you out in a public place – it looks bad for the airline!"

Raising an eyebrow and wincing slightly at his wife's tirade, Clark stood rooted to his spot near the airline desk and tried not to think about all the language that would be pouring into their son's ears in mere seconds. Planning on heading back to Smallville for Christmas – something that had become a tradition since the year Lois and Clark had officially become a couple – the family had been floored to discover that in the time it took them to pack their things and arrive at the airport, a large snowstorm had already covered Kansas City International and had cancelled most incoming flights. Lois, of course, was furious, and demanded to know why the airline couldn't offer an alternative rout to KCI… or _somewhere_. Clark simply stood back, Jason perched atop his shoulders with his son's hands resting on his head, and watched, wondering how long it would take her to give up and ask for _his_ suggestion instead.

"Mommy's mad," Jason said matter-of-factly, putting his head down on his hands. Clark felt the slight press of weight on his head and momentarily glanced Jason's way before looking worriedly back at Lois.

"Yeah… it looks that way, doesn't it?" Suddenly Lois began to snarl at the desk clerk, and Clark's eyes widened as he recognized the sudden fury in her eyes. Before his wife's vocabulary could pierce the quiet around them, he quickly turned on his heels. "C'mon, son, let's go look at the airplanes…"

* * *

A few minutes later, Lois found the two of them standing near the large glass windowpanes, staring at the planes taking off and coming in for landing. Clark had an arm outstretched and was pointing at something in the distance, talking quietly as she walked up to him. He turned his head toward her as she approached.

"Well, that was a massive waste of time," she said miserably, tapping a foot against one of the bags cluttered around Clark's feet. "Apparently, all flights going in and out of KCI are cancelled for the day. I guess they're getting hit pretty hard." She grinned at Jason, still staring out the window, and put her hand on Clark's shoulder. "Are you sure you don't want to… take care of business and make sure we get over there?"

"People have to deal with weather trouble all the time, Lois. It's not like Superman can make every day a sunny one just because people want it that way. They dealt with it for five years, right? Besides, the whole point of this was the see if Jason's hearing has adapted the way I think it has – and to help him with tuning it out."

"Wouldn't he be able to hear the planes approaching?"

"He's pointed out several to me just now. It's much different on an airplane, though."

"There's another one!" Jason said wonderingly, pointing at a small dot in the distance.

Lois grinned at Jason, and then raised her eyes at Clark. "Well, we have the refund offer and can go somewhere else if you'd like. Any ideas?"

"They give you refunds for cancelled flights?"

"If your name is Lois Lane and you flash 'em a press pass, they do." Lois grinned cheekily and turned around. Behind them was the large screen full of locations and flight times; the top half of the list was cluttered with flights that had been cancelled due to Midwestern storms, while others were merely delayed. Clark, turned to his side so that Jason would still see outside, looked around the bottom of the list.

"How about Maine?" Lois said suddenly, noting the time of the flight wasn't too far away. "I hear Maine looks good this time of year."

"And the flight isn't too long… I say we go for it. Christmas in Maine won't be the same as Christmas in Smallville, but at least we'd be together. And our goal would be met."

"And someone will have to explain to the little guy why we aren't seeing Grandma this year…" Lois glanced apologetically at Jason, who turned to them both when he was mentioned.

Clark effortlessly lifted Jason from his shoulders and handed him to Lois. "Here – you can handle that while I find us a hotel." He turned quickly and strode away from the pair, chuckling at Lois' deadpan, "Gee, thanks," yelled across the room.

* * *

_How's he doing?_

Clark took a quick glace at Jason, staring at the sights below from his window seat, and took Lois' pen to write an answer on the sheet of paper she handed him. _He seems to be doing all right. I gave him some basic tips on how to tune out the engine when we first got on. He had a little trouble with it, but I think he's gotten used to it now._

_How long do you think it'll be before he really gets the hang of it? Will it take more traning?_

Clark grinned, circling 'traning' and overwriting the correct spelling._It may or may not. If he can live in Metropolis, I doubt he'll have a hard time getting used to it. It's all about finding one specific thing to focus on._

_What did you tell him to consentrat on?_

He circled 'consentrat'._ I told him to try and find his heartbeat, and listen to how it beats when he sees something he likes out the window._

_To listen to it speed up and stuff?_

_Yes. He really liked it at first, but he had a hard time telling which was his and the other hundreds of people on this plane. _

_But he's doing okay now?_

Clark took another glance at Jason. _Seems like it._

_Good. As long as he stays entertained while sitting there. Who knows how much longer it's going to be before he gets restles._

He crossed out 'restles'._ I think it's safe to say he's entertained for a while._

Lois took the note from him and nodded. After reading through the contents one more time, she glowered at him and scribbled one last message._Stop corecting my speling. _

Clark looked at the note and grinned affectionately at her, nodding his consent before looking at the paper again. Moments later, after watching her grab her laptop and continue working on notes for a scandal, he passed the paper back to her. In his perfect handwriting, he had crossed out 'corecting' and 'speling' and provided the correction above each. With a huff, she quickly elbowed him.

* * *

Three and a half hours later, sitting cross-legged and watching Jason through their joined rooms with his x-ray vision, Clark shook his head and sighed. "Mom, it's okay. Really. The three of us are doing just fine where we are. Would you want me to risk revealing myself to the world if something went wrong?"

"_Of course not, Clark,_" Martha said. "_I just wanted to be sure that you three were doing alright. Is Jason handling everything well?_"

"He's sitting on his bed looking at the snow falling outside. I think he'll be okay, mom."

"_And Lois?_"

Clark took his eyes off Jason for a moment and looked into the bathroom. Lois was sitting on top of the toilet seat and pointing her finger at the air while she forcefully spoke to the person on the other end. "Lois is being her usual, diplomatic self."

Martha sighed, chuckling slightly. "I should've known. Tell her to go easy on whomever she's talking to – it _is_ Christmas Eve, you know. Remind me why you thought heading out of town on Christmas Eve was a good idea? I taught you how to be more punctual than that."

Clark shifted uncomfortably. _She can still make me feel like my hand's caught in the cookie jar… _"We got a little busy, Mom. A certain someone was needed a little more often than we anticipated."

"_You could've planned ahead._"

"We did plan ahead. When you're in the Kent family you have to be ready for anything."

"_I'm only kidding you, dear. Have a safe Christmas and be careful on your way back, alright?_"

"Will do, Mom. We love you."

"_I love you too, Clark. Give my love to the family._"

Clark flipped the cell phone closed at the same moment Lois emerged from the bathroom, tossing her phone on the bed and running a hand through her hair. "Well, they won't refund our money for the flight here—"

"Logical."

"—but they will give us a chance to get an early flight back to Metropolis when we're all finished. As far as I'm concerned, I say let's stay until after New Years. Weren't we planning a vacation sometime soon?"

"Do you honestly think you can stay away from the _Planet_ that long?"

"Only if we make it sound like the conditions are really bad here. 'Yeah, Perry, we've got five feet of snow on the ground, and Jason has gotten himself lost inside of the winding tunnel that my husband with heat-vision built for him in out in the back. If we can get out of this, it would be a miracle!'"

Clark prepared to say something, but stopped himself. Holding up a hand at Lois, he looked at Jason through the wall and found the boy was staring curiously at their door. He looked back at Lois and grinned a little bit. She pointed at her ear and mouthed, "Can he hear us?"

Clark shrugged and went back to looking at Jason. When the boy went back to the window, he whispered softly, "Jason, look at me if you can hear me."

The boy did nothing. Clark looked back at her. "I guess not. Maybe he heard muffled noises and was trying to tell what they were."

"But he would be able to tell our voices from anything else, right?"

"You'd think." Clark blinked his eyes, watching the image of Jason turning back to the window dissolve into the wall in front of the bed. "Maybe he's just practicing."

Lois turned off the lone bedside lamp and jumped under the covers. "He can practice tomorrow. Shouldn't he be spending his time trying to listen for those magical reindeer or something?" She crawled across the bed and snuggled up next to him. "Come 'ere you overgrown space heater…"

"Overgrown space heater, eh? Is that all I'm good for now?"

"When it's snowing outside and the room isn't warm enough, yes." Lois grinned at him warmly when he put his arms comfortably around her. "In the summer, you're just too darn warm."

"There's no such thing as too warm," Clark whispered, bringing his lips near her ear and grinning when she slightly shivered.

"There is when it's the summer. You've got all the luck for not feeling a speck of humidity. Do you enjoy mocking mankind, or does it come with the job?"

_My father might've thought it did… _"I can't help that I'm this way on earth, you know. You should be happy for it – if the sun didn't affect me the way it did, you would've met the pavement of the _Daily Planet_ building years ago."

He could almost hear Lois' huff. "I would've gotten out of it somehow."

"Oh, right. _How?_" He laughed at her attempt to muffle her shriek when he dug a hand into her side. "Grabbed a hold of the building while you were falling?"

"I would've done something!"

"I'll just take that as the thank you I never got," he grinned, letting her go and chuckling when she stalked closer to him.

"I'll give _you_ the 'thank you' you never got," she said huskily, her eyes slightly heated and a small smirk making his heart skip a beat. He expected her to capture his lips with hers and tell him they should try to be as quiet as possible, or at least allow him to indulge in holding her closer while they both fell asleep. Then again, as tired as they both were from the day's events, it didn't look like sleep was coming for a little while…

What he didn't expect was for her to flop back into her side of the mattress and thrash around while muttering under her breath, occasionally letting out a string of, "Oh my G—ow! Oh, for the love of…" followed by low groaning.

Clark merely stared back at her. "Is this a new mating dance? 'Cause I'm not sexually attracted to you at all right now."

If she hadn't been gripping her leg, she would've slapped him. "I've got a cramp, you moron!"

Clark sat up and moved over to her thrashing legs. "Geez, is that all? I thought you were trying to get my attention somehow…"

"Watch it, Kent," she murmured, letting her head thump back against the pillow as he stretched her foot and rubbed the muscle of her calf. After a while her moans of pain gave way to quiet whimpers before finally subsiding. She had planned a snippy retort once her leg go of her leg, but the look on his face – once again looking at the wall – stopped her. "What is it?"

"Just a second. I think…" Clark stared more intently for a moment, a small look of fascination covering his features. "I think he heard you."

"Well, it wasn't exactly quiet."

"It wasn't exactly loud, either. Hotels are usually designed to keep the sound out of other rooms. These walls are pretty well insulated. If he was able to hear that… if he was able to hear that then he did a fantastic job on the plane earlier."

"Listening to his own heartbeat?"

"That has to be it." For a moment, Clark allowed himself to stare at his son with complete wonder and awe, amazed that the boy was learning so young how to control the very abilities he didn't know what to do with. Another thought struck him a moment later, and his expression fell to the point where Lois could visibly see the blood drain from his face.

"What?" she asked suddenly. "What is it?"

It took Clark a moment to answer. "You… you don't think he can hear us when we…"

Lois stared back at him with an ever-growing smile while Clark's face and neck turned bright red. "Well…" she started, nudging him. "At least he'd be learning it from us instead of some kooky teacher, right?"

Clark, still red, gulped. "I don't think that helps very much…"

* * *

Hours later, Clark awoke with a start. Groggily blinking his eyes, he opened his eyes and x-rayed the wall before him. The sound had come from Jason's room…

Suddenly, he was fully awake. Jason was still sitting on his perch by the window, eyes wide open as he seemed to observe every individual snow that fell from the sky. Looking around the room, Clark found the bedside clock and groaned. _Why can't he ever be like this on a school day?_

Gently easing Lois's arms from around his waist, Clark snuck across the room and opened the door to the joined rooms, doing his best not to startle Jason. The quiet effort seemed wasted; Jason was staring straight at the door like he was expecting Clark to walk through it at any moment.

"Hey, buddy," Clark said drowsily, squinting hard at the light shining in his eyes. "What are you doing awake?"

"I'm listening," Jason answered simply, as if those two words would solve everything.

"Listening to what?" Clark walked across the room to the bed and sat next to Jason, putting an arm around his son's back and wondering if he was going to be told a tale of how Jason listens for monsters every night before he goes to bed. Maybe he had been up all night 'fighting' them.

To his complete surprise, though, Jason pointed outside. "The snow," he answered again.

Clark was suddenly very awake. "The snow?" he said in slight disbelief. He brought his head further to the window and looked at the frame. "You can hear it falling?"

"Uh-huh. Hitting the window. Listen and you can hear it, too."

Suddenly, Clark's grin was brighter than the lamplight in the room. Bringing his head close to Jason's, the two of them sat close to the window and listened to the light 'chinks' and tinkling noises of falling snow. It didn't take much for Clark to separate the sound of snow from the other noise surrounding them, but this one moment, where father and son could be so much alike, was more than he could ever ask for. He knew his son had been fine-tuning his hearing all night long – his face wasn't quite as fierce as it had been before. He could have stared and watched his son until the horizon became blotted with the end of the evening storm and the beginning of the new day. He was brought out of his musings by Jason's sudden revelation.

"It's Christmas!" he said, bouncing back onto the bed.

"Yeah, I'd say it is about Christmas morning, isn't it?"

Jason tried to give a whoop, but Clark shushed him with a hand over his mouth moments before the air escaped his mouth. "Shh! Don't wake your mother!"

"Too late," was the groggy voice that broke in from the other room. Lois emerged moments later wrapped up in a bathrobe and slightly shivering. "Stupid space heater had to move, didn't you?"

"_He can hear the snow_," Clark said wonderingly, grinning at Lois as the revelation failed to hit her foggy brain. "Isn't that amazing?"

"Fantastic," she deadpanned. She turned back to Jason. "Didn't someone in here just exclaim that it's Christmas?"

Jason began to bounce on the bed again. Clark, knowing Lois hadn't been anywhere near a coffee maker, grimaced. "Are you sure you want to start so early?"

"Oh, you bet I don't. But I figure the earlier we get started, the sooner this kid will crash after it's all over. Although, I don't think it's really Christmas without a tree…"

"That's okay!" Jason's little form bounced on the bed again.

"And we won't have grandma's presents today," Clark reminded him.

Jason stopped bouncing for a moment. "Do we have presents here?"

Lois gave Clark a sly grin. "We might have a few in our bags somewhere…"

Immediately, the boy started bouncing again. "Let's have Christmas here! Let's open presents! C'mon, Daddy!"

The proud parents both laughed when Jason darted from his room into theirs, jumping atop the bed and burying himself into the pillows, calling for them to join him. Clark stood and met Lois in the doorway, grinning at her slightly scowling face, still groggy from being woken up so early. "Can I make it up to you later?"

"You _are_ making it up to me later," she grinned, reaching for his hand. "Let's go, Daddy. It's time to open some presents."

* * *

**AN: **Special thanks to the betas of awesome for their work on this piece! You know who you are! ;)

_What are you thinking?_

_Press the small purple button,_

_Please tell me your thoughts! _


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